Original manuscript of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is a highlight of Brown’s literary archives

Never has a book been so relevant to the times we live in

Brown University.  Photos by Nick Dentamaro/Brown University

Millions have read the opening line of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

But far fewer readers are aware that the author initially wrote it as: “It was a cold blowy day in early April, and a million radios were striking thirteen.”

That revision and many others are handwritten on Orwell’s original manuscript of the 1949 novel, housed in the Brown University Library’s special collections at the John Hay Library. Students and scholars alike can glean insights into the author’s writing process by studying the artifact, which is thought to be Orwell’s only surviving manuscript, according to Head of Special Collections Instruction Heather Cole. 

“In a sea of amazing treasures, this is one of the library’s most beloved, and it’s something we are proud to have,” said Cole, who is also the curator for literary and popular culture at the Hay Library. “When I take it out to show students, I say, ‘This is a one-of-a-kind thing that you can only see at Brown.’”

Brown Head of Special Collections Instruction Heather Cole examines
 the manuscript of George Orwell's “1984” at the John Hay Library.

The manuscript, donated to the library by Brown Class of 1957 alumnus Daniel Siegel, offers a rare glimpse into the author’s revision process. It consists of 197 typed and handwritten pages, which is about 44% of the published text, and represents four stages of composition. What happened to the remaining 56% of the manuscript is not known, according to Cole. 

“Orwell destroyed his manuscripts, which is something authors do sometimes if they don’t want people to see their process or they want to move on to the next thing,” Cole said. “As far as we can tell, he was quite ill when he wrote the book and wasn’t able to destroy this one.”

Writing under the pen name George Orwell, Eric Blair composed “1984” on the Scottish island of Jura between 1946 and 1948 while suffering from tuberculosis. 

He died in 1950, about seven months after the book was published to widespread acclaim, coining terms including “Big Brother,” “doublethink” and “newspeak.” 

The bestselling novel remains widely assigned in high school and college courses, with many continuing to cite its relevance today in discussions about government censorship, surveillance and manipulation of truth.

As part of Brown Professor of Comparative Literature Esther Whitfield’s Writing and Censorship course, students visit the Hay Library to consult materials, including “1984,” that have been subject to censorship at some point in their history.

The novel was censored in the former Soviet republics and in Cuba, given its thinly veiled critique of communism, and it has been banned in some local communities in the U.S. in the years since its publication “for sometimes inscrutable reasons,” according to Whitfield.

“It is a privilege to be able to consult the manuscript of such a monumental book, and to see the handwritten changes Orwell made to his typed pages,” Whitfield said. “It opens a window to his process as a writer and shows us the alternatives he considered for some of the most important sections of the novel. For a literature course in particular, this kind of close reading is valuable.”

Cole notes that the manuscript illustrates that some of the best-known lines in the novel — like “Big Brother is watching you” — were added during the revision process.

“Sometimes when we think of great works of literature or art, we think that they kind of emerged fully formed from the minds of brilliant artists,” Cole said. “But here you can see him changing almost the entire thing. In some cases, he’s adding in entire handwritten sheets of paper between the typewritten sheets, and you can even see that the paper is different sizes.”

Students often respond to the manuscript with great excitement, Whitfield added.

“They spend a long time with it, touching it and deciphering the handwriting,” Whitfield said. “Just being able to hold it, as a physical object, inspires reverence, especially given how many of our books today are electronic.”

How did the manuscript end up at Brown? About two years after the author’s death, his widow, Sonia Mary Brownell, donated the book to a charity auction, where it was purchased by the New York publisher Scribner, sold to a private collector, and then re-purchased by Scribner in 1969. Siegel, who was a rare book dealer and collector, bought the manuscript later that year. In 1984, Siegel published the manuscript in a facsimile edition edited by Orwell scholar Peter Davison, and in 1992,  Siegel donated it to the Brown University Library.

After the initial gift, Siegel continued to gift the library a large collection of rare books and manuscripts, including many that are still being catalogued, Cole said. His donations include a first edition of “The Great Gatsby” inscribed by F. Scott Fitzgerald to T.S. Eliot, and the first two editions of Copernicus’ “De Revolutionibus,” which established the heliocentric theory of the solar system, among many other significant works.

Materials in the Brown University special collections, including the “1984” manuscript, are available to the public to view by request.